


The Growing Tree in the Front Yard

by antistar_e (kaikamahine)



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Sibling Incest, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/pseuds/antistar_e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, it really is as simple as deciding you don't want to live without someone. Fiery volcanoes and all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Growing Tree in the Front Yard

**Author's Note:**

> Boybending fic! Because that last episode gave me a lot of feels and I needed fic where the Fire Ferrets worked things out like mature adults and then lived happily ever after in a polyamorous relationship.
> 
> Spoilers up through 1x05.
> 
> You can read this here or [@ LJ](http://veritasrecords.livejournal.com/110055.html).

**-**

 

When she wakes, it's to sunshine on her face, dappled through the green of the leaves, and the wind is stirring the branches outside the window in a sound like whispering.

Trees aren't really the vogue in Republic City, especially not this far away from the park, but Bolin had insisted, so here it is. Its branch tap out rhythms on the walls in high winds, and in the autumn it drops cones on their heads as they cross the courtyard, and when the sun is in the right part of the sky, it wakes Korra up from dreams of viridian green, broad leaves shadowing the window and sunrise a burnt color across the sky.

There's no need to be awake yet, so she stretches her limbs out against the sheets, not opening her eyes beyond slits. She contemplates falling back asleep.

She's already awake though, so she stretches her hand out blindly, fumbling until she finds Mako's hip. 

She squeezes it consideringly, and after that, it's not much effort at all to slip her fingers down the curve of his thigh, fisting her hand around him. She strokes him into hardness, lazy, warm, and sleep-sluggish.

He wakes the second she touches him, like he always does, but once he locates himself and her in the universe and gauges them to be okay, he starts to drift off again, his eyes at half-mast and his body canted onto his back, spreading for her unconsciously. By the time she straddles him, one hand down between her legs to position him, he's fully hard and mostly asleep. She thinks about biting him, or digging her nails into his ribs to wake him up and get him to start participating, but she doesn't really need him for this, so she lets it go.

He's awake enough to palm her thighs idly, feeling the flex of muscles under her skin as she rocks herself down onto him, stuttering a little before she lifts back up.

Korra touches his bottom lip with her thumb, and he smiles.

Her hair is loose, messy and heavy on the back of her neck and making her sweat, and the sunshine is warm on her chest, the shutters on the window creaking familiarly in the breeze. Somewhere in the distance, a train whistle is shrieking, steam painting a white stream in the sky.

It's only about five minutes, maybe less, her circling hips slow and arrhythmic, before Mako slips his knuckles up against her and she doesn't come so much as she judders and falls without a sound. The force of it curls her spine low enough to bring her into range, so he pushes himself up onto his elbows so he can kiss her slackened mouth. 

Coming back to herself, she grabs onto his hair for hand-holds and twists her hips. He gasps, and she mouths at his upper lip happily.

She loses track of things for awhile, and when he comes, his arms give out and she flings out a palm to catch them, following him down and bracing them against the mattress. He pants up at her, eyes open, and she grins, kissing him for a long while before pushing herself back up into a seated position.

"Oh," says Bolin from the other pillow, his voice sleep-slurred. "Okay. I wondered. I kept hearing these weird sounds in my dream, like somebody was slurping noodles really loudly, but it was just you guys."

Korra laughs at him, stretching over to punch his arm in retaliation, and he beams, unselfconsciously pleased with himself.

Mako smiles over at him, fond, and after a moment, Bolin licks his lips and asks, "Can you ... again?"

"Oh, _please,"_ Korra huffs back, like it's insulting that he even needs to ask. She leverages herself off of Mako and Bolin reaches out to help her, his fingers hiccuping a little on her hips at the sound Mako makes when he slips free, wounded and small and breathless. 

She is so slick from it that it takes almost no effort at all to sling her leg over Bolin's hips next, to guide him straight and sink down on him in one smooth, easy movement. The sound of it is obscene. 

"Oh," he goes, reverent, his hands skating up and down her sides, restless and eager. She feels rather than sees his toes curl at the air. "Oh, you're so awesome. You're so awesome."

Next to them, Mako watches the desperate little motions Bolin makes to meet her on every downstroke, and throws out the occasional comment, reading his brother's body language a split-second faster than Korra.

"Twist your hips up a little further when you --" he goes, but she's already compensating, her knees beginning to creak with the constant movement. "There you go," he breathes, airless, as Bolin's back arches clean off the bed and the bottom of Korra's stomach melts out, molten with want. She wants that look on his face every morning of their lives. Every morning, every afternoon, every evening, as many times as possible, as many times as they can manage.

"Hey, quit that," Bolin manages to get out, a little belatedly, taking a hand off of her waist in order to slap at the closest bit of Mako he can reach. "I can run my own commentary, thank you very much," and then his mouth drops open, speechless, when Korra flings her head back and comes a second time, hips jolting rough against his.

"You were saying," Mako comments, dry.

"Nnnngnngh," Bolin replies.

Korra aches, returning to herself slowly, and she mostly just wants to go back to sleep, feeling full and pleasantly tingly down to the ends of her toes, like she's been shuffle-slide-earthbending, moving stone walls. It's no trouble to let herself tip sideways, still caught in the curl of Bolin's arm and no longer in direct sunlight. Mako scoots closer on the other side, hand finding his brother's hip. Korra drowses, nosing into Bolin's side, feeling him jerk and tremble with every breath, and knows that Mako will take care of him, same as he always does.

She falls asleep to the sound of leaves rustling and the city moving outside and Mako kissing quiet the noises that come out of Bolin's mouth.

 

**-**

 

The house really is too big for them, because why would three people need so many rooms, but they keep it anyway. Bolin really does love that tree and Naga needs a yard to run in and the location works, and that's reason enough. No matter which room she's in upstairs, Korra can always see Air Temple Island from the windows, and the probending stadium makes a glorious, lit-up display at night, lights catching on the bay water.

Asami helps them decorate, because she is so good at coordinating color with design that Korra is pretty sure it's a hitherto unknown form of bending.

They've seen some of her previous houses, and it leaves them all in awe.

She makes several attempts at getting them involved, because it is their house, but Mako and Bolin are completely useless and everything that Korra knows about interior design she knows from repeatedly repairing her parents' home every time she accidentally blasted a hole in the wall. Eventually, Asami just throws up her hands and shoos them from the premise, and they wind up with some kind of Fire Ferret motif in every room. Asami looks unrepentant, her eyes glittering bright as fireflies. 

She has earthbending eyes unlike any Korra has ever seen, a glowing green color as sharp as Bolin's. It's strange, because she's pretty sure Asami is a nonbender, but, in private, Bolin just likes to joke that Mako has a type; after all, Bolin and Asami are both green-eyed gorgeous, vulpine, and strikingly feminine, right?

She stays over a lot, in one of the rooms downstairs that faces the courtyard, done up in soft yellows and whites and sliding partitions in a creamy color, like a blinding flash of sunlight.

The cop she's dating stays over sometimes, too, and every now and then, they'll still be in bed when Korra goes out for morning meditation, two figures curled too tightly together to tell apart. 

She has nothing but respect for Asami's father, but she thinks maybe he doesn't approve of her girlfriend the same way he once approved of Mako, even if she is a cop. So every time Asami tucks her hair behind her ear and asks, quiet, "do you mind if ..." Korra beams at her and cuts her off with a, "please, stay as long as you like!" and Bolin'll grab her by the hand and babble, "Seriously, you haven't even seen Pabu's kits yet, they are seriously the most adorable things -- they just opened their eyes!" and Asami will cover her mouth and giggle, and that will be that for another day.

She's furnished them a very lovely house, but Mako and Korra and Bolin keep to their room, mostly; the one with the widest window and the smallest bed, so that they have to sleep as close together as possible, half on top of each other, too tight to even have room to dream.

It just feels more comfortable, more like how they were raised.

(And sometimes, just sometimes, when she's running hot-blooded off a good practice, feeling fierce and competitive and wanton, she'll goad Mako into pinning her up against the wall, her legs around his waist and her hands in his hair, and she'll get him to yell so loud she's pretty sure they can hear it two blocks over. There are only two people in the world who can get Mako to lose his self-control like that, and Korra is one of them. When they make it back downstairs, shaky-legged, Bolin will be laughing at them and Asami will be pink-cheeked, darting them looks under her eyelashes like she's taking little slices of them, split seconds to tuck away for safe-keeping, like they're too bright to look at for very long.

For an Avatar, Korra is pretty possessive, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)

 

**-**

 

There's a waterbender who lives in the projects on the south bay side who likes to freeze shopkeepers in place where they stand behind their cash registers in such a stylistic manner that it leaves Korra a little disheartened, because she recognizes it as similar to her own -- a little showy and a lot inconsiderate. Benders do _not_ use their bending against nonbenders, it just isn't the done thing. It's the law in Republic City, and has been since Korra got it pushed through the Council.

He goes missing at the height of summer, and two weeks later, Lin Bei Fong shows up at the Avatar's home, standing in her tasteful reception foyer and staring her down pointedly.

" _What?"_ goes Korra after a long moment, rounding her shoulders defensively. She's looking around for something to stir sugar into her tea with. The sight of granulized crystals settling in the bottom of her cup makes Lin Bei Fong's eyes tighten at the corners, like she cannot imagine why such a thing would be done to perfectly austere tea. "I didn't kidnap him. You can check under my bed if it makes you feel better."

She kind of wishes she _had_ kidnapped the guy now, because there's a part of her that will never outgrow the enjoyment that comes with antagonizing someone who actively dislikes you.

"There is an _order_ to these things, young Avatar," the Chief of Police tells her, each word bitten out hard like a probending block, a one-two-punch. "I know the courts are a little slow for your ... tastes, but they're how we do things. To ensure _fairness."_

"I didn't go anywhere near the guy!" Korra protests, drawing her face up into a scowl.

It's ridiculous, how this woman makes her feel like a child, every time.

Lin Bei Fong lingers for another ten minutes, for the sole purpose of making Korra as uncomfortable as possible, before she leaves again, her officers saluting smartly when she comes out to the curb. Korra drinks her tea and rolls her shoulders, trying to get the knot of tension out of them. Politics comes as difficult to her as airbending, sometimes.

The brothers come back not long later, summer sweat shimmering visibly underneath their collars. Bolin's talking animatedly -- presumably about food, since she catches the words "succulent" and "flavorlicious" in there somewhere; at least, she hopes he's talking about food -- and Mako's eyes find her first thing, the corner of his mouth curving upward in greeting.

"I ran into Pema this morning," he tells her, conversational. Pabu skitters across the wood floors to greet him, chittering excitedly, and he bends down to nick him under the chin. The fire ferret's eyes lid under the attention, bottlebrush tail waving.

"Oh?" she returns.

"She wants to know if you're planning on producing offspring any time soon," he deadpans, startling her into laughter. 

"What?"

"She was very wistful about it," Mako insists. "I think she misses the sound of little feet pitter-pattering around the Air Temple."

Korra laughs again. "I suppose so," she says. She hasn't really thought about it. It didn't seem important, not like it had been for Avatar Aang, who needed to repopulate his people. "Sure, someday, I guess."

In the background, Bolin punches the air.

"I want a _litter,"_ he enthuses, coming down to join them. Korra's arms are open before he even reaches her, because it's mostly muscle memory at this point, to do that when she sees Bolin coming at her, and he picks her up easily and spins her around. "A whole litter of kids. Like, at least a dozen. Can we do that? Is that a thing we can do? We could _totally_ do that."

He sets Korra down, catching the amused expression on her face, and glances over at Mako, who is watching them, eyes softly tolerant.

He quickly reigns himself in, feigning nonchalance. "I mean," he goes, running his hand along the back of his head like it's no big deal. "Only if you want to. It's entirely up to you."

She presses her palm against his chest. "We'll _see,"_ she says, and his eyes crinkle like origami at the corners, an expression so delighted and joyous that it's her turn to pick him up and spin him around. Bolin has never failed to make her happy, not a single day in his life, not the very first moment he rescued her from getting unceremoniously kicked out of the probending stadium, and some days, that knowledge makes her love him so much it hurts.

When he gets his feet under him again, he catches the flat of his palm against her hipbone. His thumb presses in and rubs a circle against her skin, slow.

"We could start now," he suggests, shameless. He warms up to the idea even as he says it, eyes flicking up to include his brother before darting back down to hers. "Right now, this very instant."

"Bolin, no --" she starts, but the second she is turned away, Mako grabs her up and tosses her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, her Avatar's shawl going askew and undignified and her legs kicking helplessly at the air. She pounds at his back, hard enough to make him grunt. "Put me _down!"_ she goes. "I can't! I have very important things to be doing!"

"Very important things?" Mako echoes. He could sound a little bit more disbelieving, but he'd have to try pretty hard.

" _Yes,"_ says Korra emphatically. The stairs creak under their combined weight, and Bolin's tagging close enough behind them that pretty much all she can see is his hands, all broad knuckles and hard calluses, loosening his collar. "I am kind of a big deal, in case you didn't know, and I have more productive things to be doing with my time. Avatar things! This is not an important Avatar thing!"

Mako just makes a noise. If she were serious about being put down, she would have done it already -- she's effortlessly gotten out of holds much more potentially hazardous than this -- and if she really didn't want to waste the rest of her afternoon with them, then they wouldn't. 

She's secure in the knowledge, too, that she has the means and she won't find herself with child until the moment she wants to, and they know it.

"Hey," she goes, when Mako shoulders her down onto the bed and kneels down with her, going for the fastening of her shawl, careful, respectful of the Avatar talisman. He looks up at her, eyebrow ticked up in curiosity. The burnt brown color in his eyes is thin, swelled out by pupil at the thought of her undressed and complacent under his hands. "What did you guys do to that waterbender? Lin Bei Fong just came over to give me the stink eye about it."

"We took care of it. He won't be back," Mako says simply, and ducks his head down to kiss her collarbone.

"Good boys," she says, and stretches her neck.

 

**-**

 

It's hot inside the city treasury, because today is the kind of day where the heat gets everywhere, down even in the small spaces between his toes and in the bottom of his pockets with the lint. 

The ventilation systems, new and state-of-the-art and steam-powered, manage to do nothing but beat the air around some, and even the great marble pillars that hold up vaulted high ceilings of the treasury building, thick as tree trunks, seem warm to the touch. The woman on his other side puts her head down into her hand and fans herself with her tax forms, pen dangling from her fingers and monocle swinging from its chain. Sweat beads along her hairline.

Bolin rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand and tries to focus on the paper in front of him. There are more forms here than he's ever really seen in his life, but paying taxes is a grown-up thing to do. He is grown up. He has been a grown-up for years. He should be able to do the taxes for his household. That's totally what grown-ups do when they're grown-up, right?

He hasn't done anything really nice for Korra and Mako in awhile. He can do this for them.

It'll be a treat!

Seriously, though. People deserve awards for doing taxes. Medals or placards that say "congratulations on being a functioning adult!" or something.

It's hot, and there's sweat dripping in an uncomfortable line down into the small of his back, and it itches. He keeps on catching the wisp of a breeze from the woman fanning herself next to him, and it's torture. He really doesn't want to be here.

Just as he's beginning to think he should just take the tax forms with him and grab a late lunch or something, because he is _starving,_ he hears footsteps coming up behind him. He instinctively shifts his stance, bracing his heels against the marble and feeling the anchor of it beneath him, before his mind catches up with his body and he realizes he knows those footsteps, knows them even better than his own.

"Here," says Mako's voice, and he drops a paper bag over Bolin's shoulder, startling him. He catches it against his chest.

"What's this?" he goes, putting down his pen and opening the bag. He catches his squeal behind his teeth; rice balls, salted and flecked with seaweed and -- _yes!_ \-- filled with perfect, perfect cuts of fish. He flails his hands at his brother, mouth too full to properly express his feelings, but Mako's eyes are downcast, lips twisted wryly as he flicks through the tax forms.

"What are you doing?" he wants to know, giving Bolin a quizzical look. "I already filled these out."

He pulls his satchel around front, lifting the flap and pulling out an identical stack of papers.

"Oh," says Bolin. He swallows, the lump of rice sticking in his throat. "I was just, I was going to ... I just wanted ..."

Mako's eyes go inexplicably soft around the edges. He looks good today, the color in his eyes as bright as citrus fruits and the smudging burn of sunset. He looks comfortable in his own skin, and he isn't even sweating profusely, despite his long sleeves and the red scarf draped loosely around his neck. Of course he looks good today; it's the hottest, muggiest, sunniest day of the year, and he's a firebender. Firebenders thrive in sunlight, the way green, growing things do, or the way Korra looks when she's suspended midair in the middle of a hard fight, face as concentrated as a lightning strike, or the way Bolin is in his favorite noodle shop or napping high up in the tree in the yard -- for him, there's nothing that feels more _right._

"Come on," says Mako gently. "Let's give the republic our money and then we can go home."

They cross the treasury lobby to join the line waiting for an open teller, standing together and sharing the rest of the rice balls.

Mako can't help himself.

"Do you even know our median income?" he asks, side-eyeing his brother.

"Shut up," goes Bolin. "I just wanted to do something nice for you guys, okay?"

Mako chuckles, and nudges at Bolin's shoulder with his when he pouts. "Hey, man, it's okay, I get it," to which Bolin gives a dainty-sounding huff, still playing at being offended, because really, Mako thinks it's _funny_ that Bolin tries to be responsible and that's like, hurtful, man. 

Reading him clearly, Mako throws an arm around his shoulders and gives him a light shake.

It's no use being frustrated at Mako when he's like this, and Bolin could never stay mad at anybody, not for long, so he gives it up and leans into the hold. His big brother is happiest like this, with sunshine for fire fuel and Bolin within reach -- he isn't as complicated as he pretends to be, and those two things are really all he needs, and for the longest time, that was all it took to make him happy. Up until they found Korra, and Mako didn't even realize how badly he wanted somebody for his other arm until she was there, tucked up under it with Bolin on his other side.

Bolin is pretty the happiest moment of Mako's life was that championship tournament, the one in their fourth year as reigning probending champions, when Korra smiled at them during huddle, her hands knotted tightly in the backs of their uniforms and said " _boys"_ with that throaty, possessive note in her voice, and afterwards, when Bolin took her by the hips and pressed her back against Mako's chest, her mouth parted and eagerly waiting, Mako's arms went around them both without hesitation.

He's pretty sure, because it's the happiest moment of his life, too.

"Don't you ever think it's funny, that this is how it turned out?" he hears himself say, musingly. His eyes track across the bending motifs on the high ceilings; the map of the Four Nations, as they once were. "I mean, out of all the possible ways this could have ended for us, this is what happened?"

"Hmm?"

"They tell you you can be anything you want to be in Republic City -- that's kind of why Avatar Aang wanted it built, I guess, to be a beacon of coexistence and hope. A place where, like, the poorest man had a chance to become a billionaire --" he nods at the retreating back of the man who just stepped out of line, wearing the uniform of a Future Industries factory worker. "Or, a place where two penniless orphans --" he smiles and gestures between them. "Can become elite probending stars. Like, they tell you these things, but you never really expect it to happen." He takes a deep breath, an inhale he can even feel stretching in his ribs and spine. "Feels good, man."

Mako's grip on him shifts suddenly, pulling him back against his chest with one arm barred across Bolin's sternum. Bolin chuckles, caught off balance, and then Mako presses his mouth to the nape of his neck. The brush of lips was enough to send a hard shiver down to the ends of his fingers and toes, stopping his voice in his throat.

"We didn't do too badly, I guess," he says, voice low and only for Bolin.

"Well, _duh,"_ says Bolin, throwing up his arms -- but with a little restraint, because he has no desire to dislodge his brother from behind him. "I mean, have you _seen_ our hunky girlfriend? We're the luckiest guys in the whole republic!"

Mako's laugh reverberates between them both, and Bolin's hand comes up, fingers curling around Mako's and pressing them against his heart.

If anybody sees them like this, if anybody recognizes them, it doesn't matter.

They are brothers, and affection between brothers is unremarkable, right?

 

 

-

She comes down from the roof just shortly after moonrise, leaping from the eaves overlooking the front yard and summoning a strong wind to break her fall. Beyond the front gate, the sounds of the city haven't slowed down with the coming dark: steam engines chug by on the street, and somewhere far off, a siren wails and bullhorns blare; the individual words are indistinguishable.

Korra drags a deep breath into her lungs, and goes inside. She can hear Bolin shuffling around in the kitchen, where something is frying in a wok, popping and sizzling and permeating the room with a smell that makes her stomach rumble on principle, even though she isn't really hungry yet. He's dancing on the tips of his toes, the same way he does in the ring, humming the tune from some commercial that's been playing endlessly on the wireless. 

She stands in the doorway and watches him for several long moments. There are days when it amazes her that they're even here at all.

Sometimes, though ... sometimes it really is just as easy as realizing that you never want to live without someone, fiery volcanoes and all. And Korra has never let go of anything she really wanted, not since the first moment she smashed down the walls of her home and said, _you gotta deal with it!_

Bolin catches sight of her and sways to a stop, his whistling giving way to a smile.

"Hey, you," he says. "Get any important Avatar business done?"

She crosses the room, and he sets down on his heels to brace himself, which is good, because they stagger a little when she locks one arm around the back of his neck, pulling him in for a kiss. His hands come up, fanning into a hold around her ribs, and their tongues slide together, overeager and a little sloppy and a lot good.

She slips her free hand up under his shirt, but when she tries to slide it down past the fastenings in his breeches, he hisses inaudibly and grabs at her wrist.

"Insatiable, woman," he mumbles.

She tilts her head. "That's bad, how?" she breathes back.

"It's only bad in that you sorely overestimate my recovery time," he informs her, sounding mournful and sorely put-upon, like she asks so much of him. "I'm not sixteen anymore. You're going to have to wait for Mako to get home and pin _him_ to the nearest horizontal surface, because I still need time to reboot."

Korra snorts, but she steps back. "Who am I to argue with performance issues?" she says loftily.

" _Hey,"_ Bolin protests, but then she starts removing her clothes, loosening the broadcloth around her chest and her ornamentals, and stepping out of her pants, then out of her smallclothes. Bolin watches her without blinking.

When she's naked in front of him, he swallows and says, " _Really_ not helping," but then he straightens his shoulders like he's coming to a decision. "Take care of the fire, will you?"

Immediately, she snaps her fingers and the fire on the stove fizzles out. 

Bolin rolls his eyes. In the next moment, he is on his knees in front of her, stroking a hand up the back of her calf and pulling, seeking and in askance. She braces herself against the counter, hands scrambling for a good hold, and lets him hook her leg over his shoulder. The grin he tilts up at her is ridiculous, and she tells him as such.

He ignores her good-naturedly, and the instant he puts his mouth on her, it's as if the bones in her neck turn elastic. She drops her head back, hitching her hips in approval.

He murmurs something that might be "insatiable" again, but she likes the sibilant hiss and shape of it to care too much, and pushes into the word.

They hear movement at the front door at the same time, eyes snapping open and finding each other down the slope of Korra's body, and -- ever that split-second more familiar -- he recognizes the tread as Mako's first, his shoulders relaxing and mouth opening wider. Through her haze, she hears Mako's satchel hit the ground, the twin thunks of him kicking off his sandals, and then the interested noise he makes as he catches on to the sound of the sluggishly-popping oil on the stove.

Next thing, Mako is in the same doorway where she just stood, taking in everything in front of him.

"Really?" he sighs, looking back and forth between them. "You two are going to be the death of me."

Bolin rocks back onto his haunches at that, tilting his head up to grin and say, "It hasn't killed you yet, bro."

His chin is wet, and even from across the room, Korra can see the swelling dark of pupil in Mako's eyes at the sight, the slight hitch in his chest. She grabs for Bolin's hair, finding a fistful of it and using it to pull him back in.

"Hi, honey," she manages, low. "How was work?"

Mako sighs at her, like that isn't funny, and he steps into the kitchen, already tugging at the cords on his clothes. 

"Really," he says again. "I'm serious, when they come get my dead body, I want to see you guys try to explain it to Lin Bei Fong."

Korra laughs, faintly horrified at the thought. She has one hand still in Bolin's hair, but the other is free, so she stretches it out in Mako's direction, knowing that he'll come, same as he always does.

 

 

-  
fin


End file.
